


Beating Like A Hammer

by betweenthebliss



Category: Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Clones, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Extinction, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-03
Updated: 2010-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/pseuds/betweenthebliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still can barely believe he did it. That he's really out, that Umbrella's really got bigger fish to fry than him. Hard to believe; harder still to convince himself not to.</p><p>Inspired by "Help, I'm Alive" by Metric and waketosleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beating Like A Hammer

Just before dawn, the horizon glows red.

He's seen it every day since he got out, that line where earth fades into sky bleeding like an open wound. Two hundred and fifty-seven days; two hundred and fifty-seven dawns. Today makes two hundred and fifty-eight.

He still can barely believe he did it. That he's really out, that Umbrella's really got bigger fish to fry than him. Hard to believe; harder still to convince himself not to. Every time he gets to a radio, every time he meets a caravan, they tell him the same story in hushed tones, the way his ancestors would whisper tales of Angra Mainyu and Mictlantecuhtli back when humans still rubbed sticks together to make fire.

_She got out. They had her and she got out. Clones, they say. Hundreds of them. An army of one,_ they laugh. They never say her name, if they know it. He never asks; doesn't have to. There's only one person they could be talking about. He sees her some nights in his dreams; guns blazing, smiling wide, an avenging angel.

Every morning, Carlos flicks his lighter under a stolen cigarette, blows smoke rings into the sunrise, and thinks of Alice.

He'd asked her once, late one night somewhere east of Boulder with Jill and Angie asleep in the back seat, if she had any regrets. She'd looked at him for a long quiet moment, the street lights passing her face in and out of shadow. Then she'd smiled and turned back to watch the road ahead. _If we get out of this alive, I won't,_ she'd murmured, her knuckles brushing so lightly against the back of his hand he almost thought he'd imagined it.

He knows it's likely he's being followed. He didn't exactly make a clean getaway; he never expected to, at least, or to make it this long without waking up to a bullet for breakfast. The zombies are actually on his side in this one; he knows how to get away from them, how to stay hidden so they don't even know he's there. He doubts anyone from Umbrella has bothered to learn that much. And after all this time on his own, he knows how to be invisible.

The desert shimmers during the day. He wears a t-shirt over his head like a burnoose, never takes off his sunglasses, keeps his ears sharp for the sound of shuffling footsteps. The silence is so thick it's heavier than the heat.

A stone clatters down from somewhere above and his pulse jumps, drumming in his ears. He lopes toward a low outcropping of rock and crouches behind it, eyes wide and wary. For five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, he is still. Nothing moves, and he gets to his feet slow, the safety on his pistol still thumbed back.

He's back on the road when it comes, scrambling up the embankment with slavering panic in its eyes. One, then two more; only three, he can't believe his luck. His bullets go in clean; head shot, head shot, neck shot. The last one doesn't drop right away so he shoots again, between the eyes, and it collapses, limbs twitching, that strangled cry gurgling into silence. He lets out a breath, drops the clip into his palm and loads another with trembling fingers.

He keeps the gun out as he starts north on I-180. His own footsteps echo off the rocks above his head; it's been twenty-three days since he saw another living person.

He can't say for sure where he's going. He doesn't have an inner GPS telling him where she is; he follows the rumors, goes where the murmurs point him to go. He hasn't caught up yet, but there've been signs. Ditches dug, buildings fortified the way she'd taught them all to do, dirt parking lots crosshatched with tire tracks of a dozen trucks and buses. Enough so he knows he's getting warmer.

He wonders now and then (usually late at night, the only time his brain goes off alert mode, those precious few moments before sleep) if Umbrella wasn't counting on this, counting on him to lead them to her. But it doesn't matter if they were. He's drawn to Alice like a moth to flame, needs her, will find her no matter what the cost.

 

Besides, Umbrella has more to fear than she does of their eventual (inevitable) meeting. She's not exactly making a secret of her intention to bring them down. She's everywhere these days, everywhere and nowhere. A ghost; the most well-known face in the world. Umbrella's killing her clones for fun, like that's going to do anything but make her more mad. Maybe they just think sometime they'll get lucky and lay hands on the real Alice.

Carlos knows better. They'll never catch her unless she wants to be caught.

Three hundred and four days. South Dakota's miserable in the winter. Only good thing is the cold drives the zombies away. They freeze in place sometimes; scariest fucking thing he can think of, walking up on one cased in ice. He always shoots them. They'll just thaw out in the spring otherwise.

His favorite memory of her is in winter. Before the T-virus spread across the world, before the rivers dried up and the trees started dying. Right before he was taken, imprisoned, replaced. They'd spent a few weeks before Christmas in upstate New York; someone's log cabin had housed them all, and they'd made forts, boiled snow to make hot cocoa, played outside like children and eaten like kings. He'd love the snow just for that, for reminding him of her.

He wonders if she thinks of him, has to believe she does. Two years together, saving each other's asses too many times to count. They were friends. More. He knows it was more. That was no sympathy kiss, no prayer before dying she laid on him.

Well no, he corrects himself, not on him; on his clone.

He tries not to be pissed, or worse, jealous. He knows she thinks he's dead. He can't envy her that; he remembers what it was like when Umbrella had her, those months he and Jill spent trying desperately to find a way in, to find her a way out. Not knowing if she was even still alive, or what she'd look like, or what they'd done. No, grief isn't something he'd wish on anyone.

He just hopes he gets a chance to prove it's really him before she blows his head off.

Carlos never liked Ohio. He'd done some training at Fort Defiance, some pre-S.T.A.R.S. crap, like Navy SEAL training on steroids. It was flat and boring and muggy as all hell in the middle of July. Now-- three hundred and forty-one days, he thinks it's probably March-- it's flat and boring and cold. Not cold the way South Dakota had been, probably not cold for anyone born north of the Mason-Dixon. But he's chilly, and while it keeps his brain focused, it doesn't make his mood any brighter.

On the upside, he's found the caravan. Alice's. Technically he supposes it's Claire's; he's been shadowing them for two days and there's been no sign of Alice. But he knows she's there. It's huge, the caravan; trucks converted to run on cooking grease by the smell of it, buses, motorcycles. More than enough room for one woman to hide. And where else would she be?

He's not sure if everyone else is with her to protect her, or if she's the one doing the protecting.

It's late afternoon on the second day since he's been following them, and he thinks he's finally sacked up enough courage to come out of hiding. He pockets all his weapons and leaves the trees with his hands way up, walking straight and tall so there's no question he's a living, breathing person. It's still fifty-fifty they might shoot him just in case, but he goes slow, and doesn't get shot.

He explains who he is, though the sentry doesn't really want to listen. Doesn't say anything about Alice when he asks (which is good, at least if they're trying to keep her a secret they're doing a good job) and just snorts when he asks to see Claire. Tells him how things work, points him toward an armored car with a big red cross painted on the side. He'd expected this-- they need to make sure he's not bitten. He goes along, too tense even to joke with the medic as he strips down. Her hands are cold; he doesn't notice.

He hops down from the medic truck, shrugging into his jacket, strapping on his holsters, and suddenly there's a hand, hot and squeezing hard on his elbow. He looks up into Claire's furious face and goes still, his hands up. She doesn't even speak, just hauls him away, dragging him toward a bus with the windows blacked out. He says her name; she ignores him.

Inside the bus it's dim. The seats in the back half are gone; he can see a mattress, a pack full of clothes, a lamp, and the lean line of leg sticking out from where someone's tucked herself against the last seat, right beneath the window.

He's shoved between the shoulders, and goes down hard, bites his tongue, sees stars. Hears their voices, shakes his head to clear it, but by that time he's being dragged up again, and this time the face in front of him is hers. _Alice._ He doesn't say it aloud.

"What are you," she demands, her voice harsh as sand.

"I'm me," he says. "The other one... wasn't me."

"Prove it," she spits, backing up a step and giving him a long, hard look. Her eyes search his; he can see the barely-leashed rage, the hurt, the grief, and selfishly, it makes him smile.

"No regrets," he murmurs. "If we all make it through this... no regrets, you said. Remember?" He can't keep in a laugh, then; it's just so good to see her, and even if she is about to put two in the back of his head, he can't think of anything he'd rather go out looking at than her.

She walks up close again, staring at him. He can feel how tight she's wound, it's pouring off her like heat from a fire, and he's helpless not to get closer. "Alice," he says, softer than he's said anything in a long fucking time. "Alice, it's me," he whispers, and with a hoarse choking cry she flings herself at him. Arms around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder, and he's laughing and sort of crying, too, but he feels her shoulders shake and his arms tighten around her, holding her close.

Claire goes; not far, she's probably going to stand outside the bus just in case, but right now Carlos wouldn't notice if she was standing right next to him. Alice pulls away just far enough to look into his face, her eyes wide, and blue enough to drown in. Her hands are on his neck and he knows she could snap him like a twig, but when his hand splays between her shoulders and he bends his mouth to hers, she's soft against him. Her fingers curl over his chest; she can probably feel his heart pounding there, and he hopes she knows it's hers for the taking.

He missed out on a lot these months he's been gone, but he'd rather have it this way, he thinks. A kiss hello is so much sweeter than a kiss goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> now with [this optional coda](http://betweenthebliss.livejournal.com/57245.html?thread=816285#t816285). &gt;:D


End file.
